U.S. Pat. No. 4,324,450, issued Apr. 13, 1982 in the name of L. P. Weisenburger et al. to AMP Inc. discloses a connector device adapted for use with a drop wire comprising two separated multistrand electrical conductors and an insulating sheath or jacket within which such conductors extend. The device is made from a longitudinally elongated piece of sheet metal bent in the vertical-longitudinal plane into a "U" shape to have upper and lower horizontal arms integrally joined at their rear by a deformable bridge section. Each of such arms has at its front on its laterally opposite sides a pair of vertical plates projecting toward the other arm and having formed therein respective open ended notches extending into such plates from their forward margins. The notches have tapered entrances which are convergent from such margins, and which have cutting edges on the sides of such entrances. The plates on the upper arm are spaced laterally outward of those on the lower arm to permit the upper and lower pairs of plates to pass by each other with clearance. The connector has at its rear a laterally-central longitudinally-elongated slot extending from a rounded horizontal end therefor in the upper arm over the entire vertical extent of the bridge section to an opposite rounded horizontal end in the lower arm. The slot at its two rounded ends provides two vertically aligned horizontal openings which together provide vertical passage through the device.
In the operation of the device, a drop wire is positioned between its upper and lower arms so that they straddle a half of the drop wire's cross-section contanining one of its conductors. Pliers are then applied to the device to inelastically deform the bridge section of the device, and to force towards each other the plates on its arms so as to receive such half of such drop wire in the notches in the plates. Further squeezing by the pliers causes the cutting edges in the notches in the plates to pierce the insulation of the wire and to provide a maintained electrical contact between the conductor in such drop wire half and each of the plates. With the front of the device thus being clamped onto the drop wire, the device is manipulated to pass through the passage at its rear a binding post upstanding from a terminal block. A nut is then screwed onto the post to hold the device fast on the block.
The aforedescribed connector has the disadvantages among others that separate devices must be used for the two conductors of the usual drop wire, and that the need to mount such two devices on such posts can make it awkward for the two conductors of the wire of choice to be respectively connected to two binding posts at different spaced apart locations.